


there’ll be peace

by autumncolour



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coda, Ficlet, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Other, Post-Canon, Season/Series 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumncolour/pseuds/autumncolour
Summary: And it echoes, and echoes, and echoes.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	there’ll be peace

_I love you_ , Dean says to the empty room, voice cracking, barely above a whisper.

 _I love you_ , he says to the space in his bed, to the darkness filling a room where no-one is watching him sleep. The lamp from the bedside table lies broken on the floor, its pieces scattered around like fallen soldiers.

 _I love you_ , he says to the burger he cooks in the kitchen, to the beers he drinks in the library, to the whisky he nurses alone late into the night. He says it inside his head, and it echoes, and echoes, and echoes. A mantra. A private prayer. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

It doesn’t get any easier—neither the saying nor the grief. There are moments when Dean feels he’ll be crushed under the mountain of regrets he is forced to carry until the day he dies, or maybe longer. He doesn’t know what changes the kid has wrought into the fabric of reality, has no idea what now awaits him when he kicks it for the final time. Buried miles deep under that mountain, Dean sometimes hopes the answer will be oblivion.

It doesn’t get any easier, but he starts to get used to it. The pain is a constant, its weight around his neck familiar and sometimes strangely comforting. He leans his back against its trench coat fabric and remembers that it means he is good. He is loving. _He is loved_. 

“I love you,” Dean says to Sam as his life trickles out, and for the first time ever it comes effortlessly.

The road in Heaven both is and is not long. Dean drives, and with every passing mile he feels lighter. The memories are all there—all the pain, and anger, and grief, and joy, and _love_. With the certainty of those who are dead, Dean knows he can now sort through the memories, examine them in detail, individually and as the sum of his life. He knows it won’t be too painful. He knows it can wait. He has all the time in the world. For now, he is content to drive.

Time in Heaven has no meaning, has no order. It happens before he comes to the bridge. It happens after. It makes little difference.

What matters is that it happens.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says from the shotgun seat. 

He looks just like Dean remembers him—blue tie askew, hair sticking out at odd angles, the trenchcoat worn soft with use. He looks like nothing Dean has ever seen before, his brilliance the size of the Chrysler building, burning brighter than the sun and so full of love that Dean’s eyes brim over with tears.

“I love you,” Dean says.

“I know,” Cas says. “I heard your prayers. Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This poured out of me in a wine-tinged haze at 4am after watching the series finale. Also posted on Tumblr. Feedback is life. I love you.


End file.
